My mother loved colour. She spent the last weeks of her life in a hospital bed, with its monotone greys and whites. People gave her all kinds of gifts and cards. But her favourite one was a bright purple robe with pink stitching.
That gift was from me. Truth is, I'm more of a tactile person. Yet I knew this was what she craved most--her two favourite colours in the world.
At her funeral, we released balloons in pink and purple. Or, rather, everyone else did. I held onto mine. I wasn't ready to let her go yet.
Today, though,...
If I had a box full of pounds from every time someone said if I had a pound for every time
It would probably have like £50 in it
Because although that's a common phrase
It doesn't come up THAT often
Think about it
How many times have you actually heard someone use that phrase
Probably like fifty
Yeah?
I thought so
So next time
Put a pound somewhere you can forget it
And then when you find it
You'll remember this story
And that way
As long as you are alive
So am I
And if you told it...
"She'd have preferred the electric chair," Melanie said.
A half grin sat on her lips as she stirred the crinkle fry in the ketchup far longer than anyone stirs crinkle fries in ketchup.
"You know when they were discovering the electric chair, they would like pay kids to bring in stray dogs and cats to electrocute to get the voltage just right," Beloved said.
"That's horrible," Melanie replied and she dropped the crinkle fry. "Why would you say that?"
"They finally tested it on an elephant!" Beloved said.
"Wait, who is they?" Melanie asked. She lifted her nose in the...
Captive. Surrounded by watr, the woman could not breathe, could not fight, could not even open her eyes. Her waist was bound and her feet were weighted and she was sinking. Soon to be erased.
The man in the boat had asked her one last question before he rolled her out. Now, sinking like a parachuter, she did not think about her little boy at home, or her parents (they would be so sad), or all the things she would leave behind. No. Her last moments, the last grains of sand in her proverbial hourglass, and Mari was thinking about...
She leaned over, sideways from her stool, all tits and lips and curly hair falling in his direction.
"Got a light," she asked, sticking a cigarette in the corner of her painted mouth.
He set his beer down, just foam left and dug into his right pocket. Pulled out a lighter and slid it across the plywood painted like mahogany bar. She looked at the lighter, and moved her lips into a pout. Leaned in even closer and said "A gentleman would light it for me."
"You're in the wrong place if you're looking for gentlemen," he grunted, looking straight...
Mira had been blind for several years, but in a way, she never quite lost her sight. The smell of jalapeños sliced on the kitchen slabs made her taste green and itch with stinging eyes. The jasmine by the porch wrapped her in the white cream of Sunday clouds. The library books were still breathing dust and oil from the days they were salvaged from the great fire.
It was the fire that made Mira blind. It was the fire that Mira started. It was the fire that Mira conjured when she read from the black tome.
Shape, function, ability, beauty, perfection. I wanted it all.
It started when I had a freak SCUBA diving accident that left me partially deaf in both ears. I'd gone and gotten the implants that made me hear again. But the surgery was such a success, the technology so advanced, that now I could hear better than ever. I heard couples squabbling politely over their meals from across crowded restaurants. I heard babies crying from four blocks away.
Next, I lost my vision in a freak astronomy accident and had full eye replacement surgery. Now I could see the seat number...